by Julia Griffin

“Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, dies aged 99”
—The Guardian

A Queen of England ends her life alone.
High ceremony does its best to hide
The aging woman on the ageless throne.

Her deepest griefs can never be her own,
And yet, for all the public pomp and pride,
A Queen of England ends her life alone.

The only monarch most of us have known,
She plays her part, whatever loss betide
The aging woman on the ageless throne.

They grew together as old trees have grown,
The consort and the seven-decade bride:
A Queen of England ends her life alone.

We trust her now to mourn but not to moan;
We might behold too clearly, if she cried,
The aging woman on the ageless throne.

What do we make of her? Not flesh and bone;
And yet we sense how much of her has died,
This aged woman on her ageless throne.
A Queen of England ends her life alone.

by Alex Steelsmith

“We saw the poisonous, toxic nature of Hemingway’s self-created myth… racism, intolerable anti-Semitism, bad treatment of wives, a toxic environment for kids at times and unnecessary cruelty
to friends…”
—Ken Burns, on the new Burns/Novick documentary, Hemingway

Smashity bashity,
Ernest M. Hemingway
might be abashed if he
knew that we learned

all of his weaknesses
documentarily—
or would he Ernestly
feel he’d been Burned?

by Barbara Loots

“Tiny particles called muons aren’t quite doing what is expected of them in two different long-running
experiments in the United States and Europe. The confounding results—if proven right—reveal major
problems with the rulebook physicists use to describe and understand how the universe works at the
subatomic level.”
—AP

Some misbehaving muons have the physicists concerned:
the Standard Model may not be the end of what we’ve learned.

Higgs boson made a power play to claim the name of God,
but muon doings indicate an outcome rather odd.

Humanity’s predicament may go from bad to worse:
the nuance of the muons could upend the universe.

by Nora Jay

“Miss Papua New Guinea stripped of her crown for TikTok twerking video”
—The Guardian

“Mrs. Sri Lanka beauty pageant winner stripped of her new crown by previous year’s winner onstage …
[S]he claimed the rules disqualified the winning woman for being divorced.”
—Global News

This week, two queens were unendorsed
While global watchers raged, or smirked:
Sri Lanka’s belle was called “divorced”;
Miss Papua New Guinea twerked.

Concerned to make the wording fit,
The judges did their best, no doubt:
They told Madame Sri Lanka: “Split!”
They told Miss PNG: “Butt Out!”

by Julia Griffin

“SEOUL, South Korea—An art piece by an American graffiti artist showcased in South Korea was damaged by a couple in their 20s who thought the sets of paint and brushes laid in front of the artwork was for spectators’ use.”
—ABC News

Yielding to the cans’ and brushes’
Almost audible entreaty,
Two Koreans, now all blushes,
Have graffitied the graffiti.

On a canvas which suggested
Spiders tramping in galoshes,
This young pair, now fallen-crested,
Placed their uninvited sploshes.

The results, though quite inventive,
They have charmed precisely none with.
Painters, make this your incentive:
Tidy up the paints you’re done with.

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

“Australia: Geologist beaten up by ‘angriest octopus’ on beach”
—BBC

Down under, he who underestimates
Invertebrate intelligence may learn
Shy octopuses’ antisocial traits
Can leave him nursing welts that sting and burn! …
Off beaches you should stay if you can’t read
No-Paparazzi signs in mollusk-speak:
To film a bashful octopus you need
Express permission, or you’ll rue each streak
Neurotic arms deposit on your skin
To warn you not to post your videos—
And if you do, its discontented kin
Come back for you next year to strike more blows! …
Lest suction-disk-on-tentacle red welts
Erupt again, don’t post your film … or else!

by Alex Steelsmith

“Xi Jinping… mourned for the compatriots killed Friday in a train derailment in Taiwan and sent his sincere condolences on Saturday to the families…”
—China Daily

“The American military is warning that China is probably accelerating its timetable for capturing control of Taiwan, the island democracy…”
—AP News

Tragedy strategy
President Xi Jinping,
offering sympathy,
doesn’t hold back,

though his ambition to
unsympathetically
crush their democracy’s
staying on track.

by Michael Calvert

“Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) raised a staggering $3.2 million in the first quarter of
2021, her campaign said.”
—The Hill

She’s the darling of Tucker and Hannity,
A purveyor of right-wing inanity,
Who has found, to her glee,
In today’s GOP
Nothing pays quite as well as insanity.

by Dan Campion

“Trump denies report that Matt Gaetz asked for blanket pardon”
—New York Post

Why, sure, he begged pardon, in khakis and blazer,
For frat-boy gyrations he did to amaze her
(The girl of the hour), but, boys, you can bank it—
He never did ask me to pardon his blanket.

by Jan Schreiber

“He even announced to the queen one day that he had bought her a washing machine.”
—Obituary for Prince Philip, The New York Times

I gave the Queen
a washing machine

all sleekly styled.
She was beguiled

and gratified,
but mystified:

“Do tell me more—
What is it for?”